Dropping the ball

As it got closer to Election Day I realized I really had no idea who was running and what they stood for. I don’t like to vote blindly, so I went to the state elections website where they have voter information on each race. You could click on each candidate to see information submitted by their campaign.

At least that was the idea. I was surprised by just how many didn’t submit any information at all. Okay, maybe not entirely surprised. I was the special sections editor for my college newspaper and found it was often like pulling teeth to get information from some candidates. Yes, I realize a college newspaper is hardly their biggest concern, but surely they had people working their campaign whose job it was to send information to someone who wanted it. Ten minutes to write an email is all it would have taken.

And the state elections website was even easier to please. They pretty much printed whatever they were sent. I find it hard to believe no one could figure out how to cut and paste the campaign boilerplate and email it in.

Granted my state tends to vote heavily in one direction, though there are notable exceptions. I imagine a certain amount of (not unjustified) cockiness could lead some to believe it doesn’t matter. There certainly are some areas where simply having the right letter after your name is all you need to win. But then I also live in a state where even the opposition is still hardly distinguishable from the dominant party. It probably won’t be the end of anyone’s world if the out-party candidate gets elected.

But I will say that in most cases where a candidate didn’t submit any information to the website I did not vote for them. There were a few cases where the other candidate submitted some rather frightening, extremist stuff. I worry about extremism on either side of the aisle, and I would rather take my chances on an unknown candidate in those situations.

I don’t know if I swayed any results. For all I know I’m the only person who went to that site looking for information. And perhaps I’m the only person stubborn enough to avoid voting for someone who couldn’t be bothered to submit information to the state voter website. But if not, there were quite a few campaigns who dropped the ball. If someone is giving you a free platform and actively informing people of that platform, why wouldn’t you take at least five minutes to submit something?